 |
 |
|
|
|
|||
|
|||
 |
|||
Men's basketball wins 10 straight
Opening dribbles lead to midseason downpour
By Brian Fitzgerald
|
|
|
Ryan Butt (CAS'04) scored 14 points in BU's 61-60 victory over Michigan on December 30. Photo by BU Athletic Communications |
|
|
|
BU basketball coach Dennis Wolff didn't push the panic button when his team began the season in November with an 0-3 record.
And for good reason. The losses were to solid teams: Holy Cross, St. Joseph's, and Boston College. No one likes to lose, but facing talented opponents tends to bring out the best in players. “During that stretch we challenged these teams,” Wolff says, “and although we didn't get the wins we had hoped — we should have beaten Holy Cross — the games gave us an indication of what we needed to work on.”
After that mini losing streak, the Terriers learned enough about themselves to rattle off 10 straight wins. The highlight of this hot spell was a 61-60 victory at Michigan on December 30, one of the biggest wins in BU basketball history. This was a victory over a program that has reached the Final Four six times — twice since the Wolverines' national championship in 1989.
Wolff says that BU was able to beat such a quality opponent in the hostile Ann Arbor environment because the team played well at both ends of the court. “We needed to be efficient on offense, which we were, and we needed to have a lot of fight on defense,” he says. Forward Ryan Butt (CAS'04) led the offensive attack with 14 points, and guard Chaz Carr (SHA'05) was a close second, scoring 13.
A pesky defense late in the game forced Michigan to miss three straight three-point attempts, but a backcourt turnover by BU as well as some missed free throws gave Michigan a chance to win it at the end. However, guard Shaun Wynn (CGS'04) tipped away a last-second length-of-the-court Wolverine pass to preserve the Terriers' victory.
“To be honest, if we had done some things better in the last minute of the game, we would have won by six or seven points,” says Wolff. “I think the thought of winning got us all hyped up at the end, and that's when we made some mistakes we shouldn't have made.”
It was a dramatic win against a good Big Ten Conference team, but not enough to satisfy Wolff. Perhaps that's why the Terriers captured four more games after that victory, all against America East Conference opponents: a coach who won't settle for a lackadaisical effort. He was grumbling even after BU's 63-59 win over Binghamton on January 10, but he did acknowledge that after seven games in less than two weeks, his team might be tired. He gave his players the day off after the Binghamton game, but told them that they had better regroup quickly, with a game at the University of Maryland–Baltimore County on Wednesday, January 14, followed by a home game against Vermont on Saturday, January 17.
The Vermont game is a rematch of the two teams that battled it out for the America East championship last March. Vermont prevailed in that contest, 56-55, and is 4-0 in America East play this year. The Catamounts will bring reigning conference Player of the Year Taylor Coppenrath to the 1 p.m. game at Case Gym. However, BU seems ready for Coppenrath and company after facing some tough opponents this year. “There is no question that a good nonleague schedule has helped us,” Wolff says.
16
January 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations